Emails Unveil New Details Regarding HuffPo Origins, Allege Cover-Up

Peter Daou and James Boyce, former advisers to John Kerry, have amended their lawsuit against Arianna Huffington that claims she stole the idea for The Huffington Post from them. Forbesreports that the original complaint was filed in 2010, but new emails allegedly show Huffington and her business partner Ken Lerer were asking others to work on the site, while leading Daou and Boyce on. A snippet from the new charge:

[A]t the same time as Huffington and Lerer were soliciting Boyce’s and Daou’s ideas and plans, telling them that they were building together what would become The Huffington Post, and shaking hands with Boyce and Daou in a manifestation of their business relationship, we now know that Huffington and Lerer were secretly sending Plaintiffs’ ideas to other individuals and developing their own business venture… while excluding them from ownership and control.

Daou and Boyce are also claiming that Huffington and Lerer were discussing ways to leave Daou and Boyce out of how HuffPo was created. According to the plaintiffs, the new emails “reflect the deliberate creation of a false and fraudulent ‘narrative’ to explain the origin of the idea for The Huffington Post.”

As PaidContent notes, Huffington and Lerer have maintained that Daou and Boyce had little to do with the site’s creation, and that HuffPo — once launched — was much different than Daou and Boyce’s early ideas.